One-Horse Town: A My Little Pony Story

“Did we just lead Princess Twilight Sparkle straight to her demise?” Chorus asked the group.

Nopony wanted to answer that question.

“Where do we go now? What are we supposed to do?” Ginger wondered aloud.

“Well, we can’t go back to Ponyville. The Dollkeeper would surely find us there,” Prose warned.

“Are you suggesting we stay here?” Chorus asked.

Prose raised an eyebrow. “I wasn’t actually, but that seems like our safest option. We’d have to stay far away from the Mirror Pool, but the forest is probably the safest place we could hide.”

A loud screeching noise from an unknown animal echoed throughout the forest.

“Safest from the Dollkeeper, that is.”

The ponies searched the Everfree forest for a safe clearing to rest, careful to avoid Poison Joke and Swamp Fever. Growling, screeching, and crackling haunted the ambience of the forest, striking fear into the hearts of Chorus, Ginger, and Prose. They trudged deep through the trees, until they came across a clearing that was just big enough to barely house the three of them.

“How long are we going to be staying here?” Ginger Blush questioned.

“Until we somehow come up with a way to save all of Ponyville, and possibly all of Equestria,” Prose stated.

“Well, it’s a good thing I know how to make a fire, then,” Chorus said as he began to collect leaves and twigs from the surrounding ground.

Ginger and Prose took a seat on the ground, awkwardly silent.

“So… what do you like to do?” Prose asked her.

“Oh,” Ginger looked down at her cutie mark. “I like makeup. Or, actually, I like beauty. I like the comfort there is in bringing out the beauty in somepony, or in myself.”

“That’s… really sweet actually,” Prose complimented.

Ginger smiled. “Thank you.” She looked down at Prose’s cutie mark. “Your cutie mark is a book. Do you like to read?”

“‘Like’ is an understatement,” Prose started. “I read every day. There’s so much to uncover about Equestria. So many stories, so much knowledge. I know I’ll never know everything, but it’s my goal to try.”

“That’s impressive,” Ginger complimented. “I like to read too, sometimes.”

Chorus set down all of his sticks and leaves into a pile in the middle of the clearing.

“Everypony stand back, I’m about to light this place up,” Chorus warned.

He picked up one of the sticks from the pile in between his hooves. He positioned it onto one of the thicker branches in the mix and began to twist it very quickly back and forth. After a minute or so, smoke began to rise from the sticks. A small flame ignited at the site of friction. Chorus grabbed some dry leaves and placed them over the flame, allowing them to catch fire. And just like that, the ponies had a campfire. Chorus sat down next to the fire, joining Prose and Ginger Blush.

“What were you ponies chatting about?” Chorus asked.

“We were just making small talk,” Prose explained. “Ginger likes makeup. Well, she likes beauty.”

“Prose likes to read. Like a lot,” Ginger added.

“What is your thing, Chorus?” Prose asked.

“Well, as you may know from my teleportation spell yesterday, my specialty is music. I’ve always loved music. It’s like the one thing that keeps me grounded. I actually sing in Ponyville a lot. I like to play my music out in the streets for all the ponies who like to hear it. I sang out there yesterday morning, actually,” Chorus explained.

A memory resurfaced in the minds of Prose and Ginger Blush.

“Hey, I think I heard you yesterday! I didn’t know that was you,” Prose shared.

“I heard it too! You sounded really good,” Ginger commended.

“Thank you guys! I try,” Chorus thanked. “I was just thinking, there are so many unique ponies in Ponyville. Everypony’s got their thing. There’s something different we all bring. If the Dollkeeper succeeds with his plan, everypony will be the exact same. Like, literally the same pony.”

Prose shuddered at the thought. “That’s why we have to stop him. We might be the only ponies in Ponyville who even know this is going on.”

That thought quickly killed the mood.

“Sorry to kill the mood,” Prose apologized. “I think I have some hay snacks in my saddle bag if anypony is hungry.”

Prose dug into her saddle bag and handed out some hay snacks to Chorus and Ginger Blush. They each began to munch on their snacks and eventually returned to their friendly small talk. They sat around the campfire, passing the time in each other’s company. It was a drastic, but welcome change from their usual days in solitary. None of them expected to find friendship under the circumstances of a total town invasion, but it was nice. The hours flew by as they discussed music, books, beauty, and anything else that came up. By the time the conversation was starting to somewhat die down, the sun had begun to set in the sky.

“Guys look, the sun is already setting,” Chorus pointed out.

“Time really flew by,” Ginger commented.

“Yea, it did.” Prose agreed. “You know, after all of this Operation Dollhouse stuff is figured out, we should,” she paused. “I don’t know… get together or something.”

“That sounds amazing!” Chorus cheered.

“I would definitely do that,” Ginger laughed.

The ponies all smiled at each other, grateful for each other’s company in this daunting situation.

“We should probably get some sleep,” Ginger said. “I’m up way past my bedtime.”

Chorus and Prose looked at her in confusion.

“The sun literally just set,” Chorus laughed.

Ginger looked slightly embarrassed. “Yea, I guess I just tired pretty quickly. Especially after a day like today.”

“All right, well you know what we have to do before sleeping,” Chorus started.

Prose and Ginger looked at him, unaware of what they had to do.

“We have to sing a campfire song! I mean, come on, it was pretty obvious.”

Prose and Ginger exchanged a glance at each other. It was not pretty obvious.

“Serenade us, Chorus,” Prose instructed.

The ponies got as comfortable as possible on the forest ground as Chorus began to sing an improvised campfire song:

Celestia’s sun sets
As Luna’s moon rises
This day has been filled with
All sorts of surprises

Here around the campfire
Making friends to keep

With this sweet melody
I send us off to sleep
Chorus ended the song with a long yawn. And with that, the ponies shut their eyes and drifted off to sleep.